My Little Shirtwaist Fire
by Aesa Bast
Summary: Here is a history fic which does not take place in Ancient Egypt. Surprised? Implied character death...


Author's Note: On Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, in New York City's Greenwich Village, a fire broke out in the Triangle Waist Company, just as the 500 shirtwaist employees were quitting for the day - 146 died. Yes, this is a fictionalized account of a true event. Rose Schneiderman was a real person, a member of the Women's Trade Union.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or its characters, which include Tea, Mai, and Miho. Nor do I own the classic speech of Rose Schneiderman.  
  
  
"My Little Shirtwaist Fire"  
by: Aesa Bast  
  
Tea and Mai were working especially hard that day. One of their friends, Miho, was ill and could not work that day. Little did they know that her cold would prevent her from a worse fate.  
  
"What's that smell?" One girl asked Mai, who then carefully sniffed the air.  
  
"It smells like smoke."  
  
"Smoke?!" Tea exclaimed, "there had better not be a-"  
  
"Fire!" Screamed another girl as she fled for the stairs.  
  
"This whole building is just a tinderbox waiting to go!" Screeched Mai.  
  
She was right - the building was filled with cloth and tangled fibers... it was a mess, to say the least, and Tea often wondered why they couldn't get someone to clean it or at least make it manageable.  
  
"Hurry! To the fire escapes!"  
  
Tea tried to pry one window open - "It's rusted shut! I can't get it open! Everyone go to the stairways!"  
  
Mai joined the crowd of women and girls fleeing for the quickly crammed stairs.  
  
"Tea! Hurry!"  
  
"I'm going to try to find another way out!"  
  
She tried another window - "This one's also locked!"  
  
Mai soon lost sight of Tea within the mass of bodies crowded around her and turned, following them down the stairs. Someone, she couldn't see just who, had tripped. This began a chain reaction as the panicked women would trip and stumble over each other. The women - once friends and colleagues - were little better than animals, not caring who was hurt as long as they themselves were spared the flames.  
  
A flash was seen and another room burst into flame.  
  
"Hurry! The fire is catching up to us!"  
  
"I can't see!"  
  
"I can barely breathe!"  
  
"Hurry! Hurry!"  
  
Smoke was at all sides of them and more women fell.  
  
"The door won't open!"  
  
"What? Let me try!"  
  
A hand reached past Mai and a pained cry was heard.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Back in the workroom, Tea and other women who could not reach the stairs continued to try the windows, coughing as the smoke filled the room.  
  
"Let's try breaking one of the windows," Tea suggested.  
  
"But won't that come out of our pay?"  
  
"Better to get a cut in pay than die!" Tea responded to the younger girl's question.  
  
Someone picked up a nearby stool and smashed a window, looking below at the gathering crowd outside.  
  
"The firemen are here! They have sheets to catch us!"  
  
Tea climbed out to the fire escape and tried to get it to lower - it was also rusted in place.  
  
"I'm going to jump!"  
  
"That's insane!"  
  
"Do we have a choice? We either stay and burn to death-"  
  
"Or jump and be broken to pieces!"  
  
Tea jumped.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Mai continued down the inside stairs, trying to find down to the ground level and safety. More women joined the crowd, jostling and shoving the caravan of fleeing workers.  
  
"Is there any way out?" One girl asked.  
  
"Not that I can see," Mai replied.  
  
"Not like anyone could see anything in this pea-soup," muttered an angry woman.  
  
It was true. The billowing smoke filled the dark, tightly packed halls and stairs, choking the workers.  
  
"There must be a way out! There has to be!"  
  
"I see light ahead!"  
  
Unfortunately, the light was just more fire, and it caught the curious girl's dress - she screamed.  
  
"Desiree!"  
  
Mai tried to put her friend's dress out, but the fire caught Mai's flowing blonde tresses. Other women, focused on fleeing, ignored the two workers trapped in the flames which engulfed the foot of the stairway where they were kneeling.  
  
"Somebody help us!"  
  
"Please! Someone!"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
On May 2, a mass meeting took place at the Metropolitan Opera House. Several people spoke at that meeting, but the words of the 29-year-old Rose Schneiderman reflected best the feelings towards that tragedy.  
  
"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies, if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today: the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the fire-proof structures that will destroy us the minute they catch fire.  
  
"This is not the first time girls have burned alive in the city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 140-odd are burned to death.  
  
"We have tried you, citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and daughters and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press heavily upon us.  
  
"Public officials have only words of warning to us - warning that we must be intensely orderly and must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back when we rise into the conditions that make life bearable.  
  
"I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement."  
  
  
Author's Note: These were Rose Schneiderman's true words, unaltered. I am not a communist... actually, if you truly wish to know, I'm an anarchist at heart. That's right, an anarchist with a major crush on Yami Bakura. Stranger things have happened. 


End file.
